


The Sleeping Prince

by stickmarionette



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Royalty, Fairy Tales, Intrigue, M/M, Revisionist Fairy Tale, Revolution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-27
Updated: 2013-03-27
Packaged: 2017-12-06 16:21:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/737689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stickmarionette/pseuds/stickmarionette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The King and Queen both came to a violent end, as so many kings and queens of Genosha had before them. A shame, but all tales of this sort need blood to feed them.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>As for the Crown Prince, just fifteen years old and full of promise, he fell into a deep sleep from which no method devised by the best healers in Genosha could wake him.</i>
</p><p>The tale of Erik Lehnsherr and the Sleeping Prince of Genosha.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sleeping Prince

> Once upon a time, in the magical kingdom of Genosha, there was a young and powerful king. He married the most sought after lady in the kingdom, and she gave birth to a healthy, intelligent boy. The king ruled wisely, and all was well.
> 
> But there was to be no happily ever after. The machinations of power-hungry men got in the way.
> 
> We were never to find out whether the Queen would have grown sick of her gilded prison, or learned how to love her strange child, or if the King might have recalled some time in the future that he had a son who wanted a father.
> 
> We'll never know if the child could have grown into a gentle, kind-hearted king.
> 
> The King and Queen both came to a violent end, as so many kings and queens of Genosha had before them. A shame, but all tales of this sort need blood to feed them.
> 
> As for the Crown Prince, just fifteen years old and full of promise, he fell into a deep sleep from which no method devised by the best healers in Genosha could wake him.
> 
> _He's waiting for something,_ they said. _Or someone._

 

 

Erik first dreamed of the boy the night his parents died.

They'd had to drag him away from the gallows, kicking and bellowing, his vision blinded by hot tears, and lock him away in a tiny, metal-free room at the back of the Regent's quarters, and he'd still screamed bloody murder and pounded his fists on the door until he fell into an exhausted sleep.

"Are you all right?"

Erik sat up gingerly, rubbing at his eyes. He was in an endless field of grass, dotted with small white flowers. A boy roughly his age stood over him, dressed in the finery of the nobility. His eyes were the exact shade of blue of the clear sky overhead.

"Who are you?" Erik demanded. _What an odd thing to dream of._

The boy smiled slowly. "Just a figment of your imagination. So you see, you can be honest. It's just like talking to yourself. Only - well." He threw himself onto the grass next to Erik, heedless of his clean clothes. Up close, his hair looked soft. "You can call me Charles."

His father had once explained dreams to him as the mind's way of working through what it could not during the waking hours. _That's why you shouldn't be afraid of them, Erik. The mind does what it must, and you always wake at the end._

For the first time, Erik wasn't sure he wanted to wake up, not when the world he'd face no longer had his parents in it. When his new guardian was the one who'd ordered their execution.

"My parents died," he said slowly, testing the words out. They still sounded like a lie.

Charles laid his hand on Erik's shoulder. "I'm so very sorry. Would you like to talk about it?"

Erik didn't want to talk about it, not at all, and yet the words spilled out of him as if he'd just been waiting for someone to give them to, even if that someone were a fragment of his own mind.

"They were executed for treason. Framed."

"You know whose fault this is," Charles said gently, and looked at Erik as if he saw and felt every bit of Erik's bottomless rage and grief.

"The Regent. Shaw. If - if my parents kept talking he'd have been in trouble. Everyone already thinks he had something to do with the King and Queen being killed."

It was treason to say so; his own parents had just demonstrated that. But surely he was safe in his own dreams.

Charles' mouth turned up at the corners as if Erik had spoken his last thought out loud. "Yes, indeed. What are you going to do now?"

"Find a way to kill him."

Even as he said it, Erik felt certainty settle over him. After all, he was now the ward of his parents' murderer. What better opportunity could he have for revenge?

"How are you ever going to manage that? You're just a child," Charles said. If there had been any hint of pity or disbelief in his voice - but no, there was none. He just sounded idly curious, as if they were discussing the weather.

It was oddly soothing. Erik felt himself settle into his own skin, hot rage finally cooling down into something useful.

"I'm not a child. I'm a mage, and I'll wait as long as I have to."

He was a mage, and the son of mages, and he would grow into strength enough to overpower his enemy.

For an instant, the gleam in Charles' wide eyes was pure malevolence. Then he grinned so brightly that Erik attributed it to a trick of the light.

"I look forward to your success."

 

*

 

The Kingdom of Genosha contained multitudes, mages of every stripe. Rarest were the mind mages, sought after and feared in equal measure. Even if it were possible to guard against them in the waking hours, everyone slept eventually.

Mind mages, too.

So when Emma Frost, consort to the Regent, found herself waking up in someone else's dream, she reached for her power at once, ready to cut it apart. Only she couldn't feel a thing.

Which rather ruined the surprise of the Crown Prince appearing before her, his mouth drawn in a red smile.

"Why did you lie, Lady Frost?"

"I don't know what you mean," Emma said carefully.

"You told Shaw that my body was empty."

Which meant that her suspicions were entirely correct. Still, best not to say -

"I couldn't find any trace of you."

The Prince laughed, soft and a little wicked. "I very much doubt that."

"Fine. I said it because I had my suspicions about what you are, and what you'll do. I don't intend to be in the way."

Her husband wasn't worth dying for. She'd always been clear on that.

"You will be rewarded, when the promised day comes," Charles said, as easily as if they were discussing the weather. "Would you like a Duchy of your very own?"

Emma matched his grin. "As pleases Your Highness."

 

 

_five years later_

Raven was a mage born into the full extent of her power, which had given her utterly ordinary parents quite a shock. She grew up hiding, playing at being just as ordinary, not because her parents feared or loathed what she was (or - probably not).

Most likely because they feared a visit from the Snatchers looking to swell the ranks of the Crown Mages.

 _"Better a peasant than a dog of the Crown,"_ her mother had said fiercely.

 _Dog of the Crown_ was the bitter nickname the Genoshan people had coined for mages in the service of the Regent. Raven had never heard it used at anything louder than a mutter.

Then the Regent's men came and razed their house while her parents were still inside.

One of his generals fancied the land, or so her neighbours told her in a hushed whisper afterwards, as she came home to find it in ruins.

After that, she had nothing to her name, and no idea of what to do, save find out the name of those who had wronged her family and think up some way of making them pay. As it turned out, a mage with powers like hers could do quite well in the dark corners of the capital.

Raven first dreamed of the boy who called himself Charles when she scammed her way into the palace kitchens for a snack and fell asleep, exhausted, in the cellar.

"Darling," he said, and she almost bit him for it. "Don't you think you deserve more?"

"I'm listening."

 

 

_five years later_

"Salvadore thinks we should use the Prince."

"She sounds like a very sensible young lady," said Charles, not even looking up from his book (a very old, very dusty tome on the military history of Genosha).

They were in a beautifully appointed library. Ever since Erik dreamed Charles up ten years ago, they'd never met in the same place twice. Erik would close his eyes to sleep, and wake up - anywhere. Places he'd never seen, places he'd never think himself capable of imagining.

After ten years, he still wasn't sure what to think about it all. When he asked, Charles would smile infuriatingly and say nothing, and just as Erik began to lose his grip on his temper, he'd go all somber.

_"You'll have all the answers when the time is right. I promise."_

Some days, Erik wasn't sure he wanted to know.

"Everything I've heard indicates the Prince is as good as dead. What use will a corpse be to us?"

"Leverage?" Charles shrugged. "It'll be easier to topple Shaw if the people think you have the support of what remains of the royal family."

"That's what she said. But to risk raiding the palace just for that? Shaw has it locked down tight. It's not worth the cost."

"But think of what you'll gain," Charles said. In the face of an interesting argument, he'd finally deigned to put down his book, and he paced in front of Erik as he spoke. "In the capital, the people look toward the royal line. Perhaps something to consider as the ranks of your comrades swell and his grip on power slackens."

"It's never going to slacken if we don't concentrate on the provinces first," Erik snapped, and regretted his tone immediately.

In his waking hours, he lived a double life - one as the dutiful, promising ward of the Regent, newly settled in his role as a Crown Mage, and the other as one of the leaders of the tentative revolt against said Regent's increasingly arbitrary rule. The performance was starting to take its toll, and he had no true confidant.

None save Charles, who surely didn't count, and who he had been pouring his secrets into for ten years. Some days Erik wondered if the Charles of today had been built up from all that Erik had given up to him, a phantom given power if not form by all the parts of Erik he hid from the world.

Maybe that was why Charles touched him so often, these days. It made a twisted sort of sense.

What it didn't quite explain, though, was the affection in his eyes as he took Erik's hand in his, gently, implacably, uncurled his clenched fist, and brushed his lips over the broken skin where Erik's nails had dug in.

"Quite right. Now, tell me, what are you going to do about Harold Leland?"

Erik's mouth somehow managed to work independently and began responding with the tedious details of his plan, while the rest of him was utterly lost to the strange tingling warmth spreading its way through him like wild fire.

 

*

 

"Maybe Salvadore has a point," Erik said, a few weeks later, while a pouring over a much-abused map of Genosha with Raven Darkholme.

Erik vividly remembered finding Raven loud, outlandish and annoying bright at their first meeting. A source who worked in the palace, ostensibly in the household of the Crown Prince, was exactly what they'd needed, which made him instantly suspicious. He spent years thinking she was a plant, a spy sent by Shaw, and vowing not to trust her.

Somehow, she had instead become his chief co-conspirator without Erik ever noticing.

"Angel will be very sad she missed you saying that."

"I'm serious."

"About her plan to abduct the Sleeping Prince? Are you very, very sure?"

Erik's eyes narrowed. "Why do you ask?"

For the briefest moment, a shadow had darkened her yellow eyes.

"Answer me first."

"It's too soon, but we can start putting people in place, aim for sometime next year. If all goes well, we'll be ready for it then. Now you."

"Just...be sure we're ready for it. Once we do that, there's no going back. It's victory or death."

"You love that."

Raven's face suddenly lost any hint of humour. "I love winning more."

 

*

 

Erik opened his eyes to the sculpture of the Gyrfalcon entangled in branches of elder that scarred the capital's central square, an immense, and immensely grotesque monument to the lasting power of the House of Xavier. Seated at its base, beneath the sweep of the Gyrfalcon's marble wing, was Charles, beckoning Erik toward him with raised eyebrows.

"Congratulations, Captain Shaw."

"Don't call me that," Erik muttered. One day he'd be able to reclaim his true name. For now, it made his skin crawl every damn time.

Charles, on the other hand, positively glowed with good humour. "Erik. My darling. Don't you see, you're so close. The provinces are on the verge of open rebellion. Outside the capital, you have weakened him decisively."

"But in here, he might as well be the King. With all the Crown Mages here, a siege would take months."

"Years. My father made sure of that."

Erik took a step back without ever meaning to.

"Your father - "

"My father the King." Charles had aged with Erik over the years, and the face that looked back at him now wore solemnity as well as it wore mischief, even if - something in Erik's chest lurched uncomfortably - he'd never gazed at Erik quite like this before. "Do you understand now?"

For a long, long moment, he didn't. Then Charles shifted, blurring like a mirage in the desert, and suddenly Erik was looking at the boy he'd met, but dressed in mage robes of purest royal blue, and wearing what could only be the imperial crown.

_"Do you know why the crown is shaped like a ring of thorns? It symbolises blood, little Erik. The blood that feeds the royal line. That's the truth about the Xaviers."_

"You're the Crown Prince. The one who's been asleep for ten years."

_You're real._

His life had little room for idle fancies, but in his waking moments, Erik had sometimes found himself thinking furtively of Charles' smile, how lovely it made his face. The smile that peeked out from behind Charles' steepled fingers now wasn't at all lovely. It transformed him. "I haven't been sleeping. I've been working against Shaw."

The essential truth about Shaw and his acolytes, which had taken Erik years of bitter experience to learn, was that they had their roots dug deep into every aspect of Genoshan life, and had done it even as the King and Queen lived, oblivious to the power base he'd built up. For every branch the rebels cut off, three more grew back. Thus it had been until this very year.

Erik shook his head. "I - I don't understand. Tell me something about yourself. Something true."

"When I was born, an old witch came to the Palace. She told my father the King that I had the power to read men's hearts as if they were open books, and to change them as easily as splashing ink on the page. She advised him to never let anyone know what I could do." Charles spread his hands to encompass the eerily empty square. "And here we are. Wasn't she clever?"

_"I look forward to your success."_

Erik shivered. "Would you still have befriended me if I hadn't resolved to kill Shaw?"

"Erik, there is no conceivable world in which you would have chosen to abandon your revenge," Charles said, driven to the verge of laughter by the very idea.

"Just answer the damn question."

Charles slanted an oddly shy look up at him through dark lashes. "Yes. Even mind mages need real friends. But you would only have been a friend."

"What - what else is there?" Erik asked, in a thin voice.

He wasn't sure he wanted an answer.

"There's what you were meant to be. My Champion."

Charles reached out for him; without hesitation, without stopping to think at all, Erik took the single step that closed the distance between them. Charles' broad hands on his face felt as solid as an anchor, keeping Erik in place as their lips met.

"Erik. Listen to me," Charles murmured against his mouth. "Every decision the Council has made these past ten years has been mine. I just need a little more time to move all the pieces into place."

"Then what?"

It was impossible to look away from the light in those eyes. "Then you may come to me, on the day of our victory, and claim your prize."

 

 

> The Sleeping Prince lay in the heart of the Royal Palace, cared for by an army of servants, suspended in time. Ten years passed. His plight fascinated the people. Stories and wild speculation spread throughout the kingdom and beyond.
> 
> _I saw the Prince, once, you know. Pale as snow, lips red as blood, and his eyes, oh, if he'd turned those eyes on you just once, you'd never forget._
> 
> And, very quietly:
> 
> _It's the Regent that's drugged His Highness, you see. Keeps him alive, never lets him wake._
> 
> None of them knew that all the while he lay sleeping the Prince worked in the dark depths of men's hearts, spinning an enormous web, making the capital ready for his return.
> 
> True love's first kiss? That's just a story.
> 
> Under the Prince's guiding hand, the animus between Shaw and his lieutenants grew year by year, until finally, on the promised day, they turned on each other, and the streets of the capital ran red with blood.
> 
> In the chaos, the rebels stormed the Palace, and the Sleeping Prince opened his earthly eyes to the sight of his beloved Champion, and he smiled.
> 
> The lamentations of his enemies were short.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. Feedback is adored.


End file.
